Published: December 08, 2007 03:45 am         

Remember: Nobody has voted yet

He is much like the locust as he turns off his alarm clock, rubs his eyes, stretches and decides to get up and have breakfast.

He is the politics junkie, and there is only one discernible difference between the two voracious creatures.

The locust _ more accurately referred to as "the periodical cicada" _ begins his travels every 17 years.

The politics junkie _ more accurately referred to as "the person without a life" _ descends upon the state of New Hampshire like a plague every four years.

The adult cicada lives only two-to-four weeks, then dies.

New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary is Jan. 8, four weeks from Tuesday. The politics junkie's interest in the Granite State then dies.

But for the next four weeks, the politics junkie who is lucky enough to be in New Hampshire will feel like he has died and gone to heaven.

I know this because before I got this terrific gig in upstate New York, I was editor of the Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire.

And like every other newspaper editor, I thought I knew it all.

As it turned out, I didn't.

In fact, to my daily mortification, I still don't.

In 1996, though, I believed I had the political scene all figured out.

Since Bill Clinton was running for re-election, the Democrats didn't really have a primary. So that left virtually all the campaigning to the Republicans.

It's a funny place, New Hampshire. Because it's first to vote _ Iowa has an earlier plebiscite, but since it's a caucus, it doesn't count as a real primary _ the residents take great pride in their task.

For example, in '96, despite Clinton being the only real candidate from his party on the ballot, 45 percent of the eligible Democrats in the state voted in the primary. The hotly contested Republican race drew 74 percent of their registered voters.

Folks there really do say things such as, "I'm not sure who's going to get my vote because I've only met each candidate two or three times."

It's true. No meeting is too small, no luncheonette is too insignificant, no hand goes unshaken by those who yearn to hear "Hail to the Chief" played when they walk into a room.

Our newspaper's editorial board was visited by every Republican candidate except Bob Dole.

Big mistake by Dole. At least we thought so.

The former Kansas senator held a substantial lead in all the polls and surveys a month before the primary, and I figured the other major candidates would be fighting it out for second place.

Second place in New Hampshire is very important. Four years earlier, Clinton finished second, proclaimed himself "The Comeback Kid," and went on to win the Democratic nomination and presidency.

Finish in the top three in the state and you've got your ticket punched for the next series of primaries. Finish fourth or worse, and you can start working on your concession speech.

It was my first New Hampshire primary, and I thought Dole had it in the bag. Then I talked to the newspaper's editorial page editor, Sher Haberman.

Unlike me, this wasn't Sher's first rodeo. He had seen too many New Hampshire primaries to take much stock in polls.

He looked at me with a half-smile and said four words I'll always remember.

"Nobody," he said, "has voted yet."

When New Hampshirites (yes, they call themselves "New Hampshirites") finally got around to casting ballots, Dole (who would go on to win the nomination and lose to Clinton) was defeated by the populist campaign of Pat Buchanan.

The fiery Buchanan got 27 percent, Dole, 26 percent, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, 23 percent, and billionaire Steve Forbes, 12 percent.

The Portsmouth Herald's editorial board had endorsed Indiana's Richard Lugar, who managed a mere 5 percent, barely ahead of loquacious Alan Keyes' 3 percent.

It just goes to show you how important newspaper endorsements are. I'm convinced the people who vote for candidates selected by the local paper are more than matched by those who would follow the editorial board's recommendations only when hell happened to freeze over.

Right now, this politics junkie is envying his former colleagues and would just love to infest New Hampshire like all the other journalistic locusts covering the juicy Democratic and Republican primaries.

I called Haberman to see who he thought would win. He said Mitt Romney will probably take the Republican primary, and that Democrats seem to be looking for a reason not to vote for Hillary Clinton.

But then I was reminded of the lesson he taught me 12 years ago.

"Hey," said the wise man, "anything could happen. Nobody has voted yet."

___

Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.